The Minnesota congresswoman and tea-party presidential candidate has found support in criticizing Texas Gov. Rick Perry's executive order

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) would have wide support for her position denouncing a onetime Texas requirement that girls entering the sixth grade be inoculated against a virus that can cause cervical cancer in women.

A firm majority of voters--57 percent--oppose the Texas policy that made the injections mandatory unless a parent or legal guardian requested that they not receive them. The requirement has been vigorously defended by Gov. Rick Perry, R-Texas, who is battling Bachmann for the Republican presidential nomination; he has said he would err on "the side of life" in the fight against the human papillomavirus, or HPV. Bachmann has suggested that the vaccine causes mental retardation, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contends there's no evidence of that.

The results of the survey appear in the latest installment of the United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll. Those surveyed denounced the Texas policy of requiring girls entering the sixth grade to receive vaccinations against the disease.

According to the poll, opposition to the mandatory inoculations is consistent across historic divides of class, race, and party affiliation. When it comes to gender, 56 percent of women and 58 percent of men said it was wrong "to require such vaccinations." Among white non-hispanics it was 57 percent who said it was wrong, virtually identical to the 56 percent of blacks who responded the same way. Only among the youngest age cohort that was questioned--those 18 to 29--was there a majority supporting the policy: Just over half, 51 percent, said it was the right policy while 45 percent said it was wrong.

The Congressional Connection Poll, conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, surveyed 1,000 adults by landline and cell phone from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

The findings of the survey, which focused primarily on a range of regulatory issues that Congress either has considered or will shortly be considering, showed a profound skepticism of government regulation in the abstract--but at the same time a notable opposition to Republican efforts to repeal assorted environmental issues. For instance, 55 percent of adults said that government regulation of business has been a "major factor" in the "current economic slowdown." By contrast, only 29 percent said it was a minor factor, and 13 percent said it was not a factor at all. But when respondents were presented with arguments about pending Environmental Protection Agency regulations of emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists have linked to global climate change, voters has a more favorable view of regulation, with 52 percent saying the rules should be implemented and 39 percent saying they should be blocked.

With voters erring on the side of public health and safety over the fear that regulation could stymie economic growth, it's perhaps surprising that there would be so much opposition to the Texas policy, which has been endorsed by public health advocates.
In other news, the poll showed a hesitancy to repeal financial regulation that has stirred the ire of Republicans in Congress and running for president. In the Republican presidential race and in the halls of Congress, there's widespread GOP support for repealing the Dodd-Frank bill, the 2010 statute that imposed greater regulation on banks and other financial institutions.

A majority of women--51 percent--wanted to leave Dodd-Frank in place, while 38 percent wanted to repeal it. Men were more divided, with 46 percent wanting to keep it and 45 percent wanting its repeal. The poll found that 63 percent of Republicans said they want the law repealed and only 30 percent wanted it kept in place. The converse was true of Democrats. Fully 68 percent of them wanted to keep the law in place and only 24 percent wanted it repealed. An interesting regional divide was exposed in the poll. Among those living in the East, 57 percent wanted to keep the financial-reform law in place; that number fell to 45 percent among respondents in the Midwest.

All of this suggests a certain unpredictability in the electorate as Congress faces an autumn schedule of important votes on regulation. Arguments about public health play out in ways that are hard to anticipate.

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Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

On the morning of Monday, August 13, 2012, Scott Stevens loaded a brown hunting bag into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, then went to the master bedroom, where he hugged Stacy, his wife of 23 years. “I love you,” he told her.

Stacy thought that her husband was off to a job interview followed by an appointment with his therapist. Instead, he drove the 22 miles from their home in Steubenville, Ohio, to the Mountaineer Casino, just outside New Cumberland, West Virginia. He used the casino ATM to check his bank-account balance: $13,400. He walked across the casino floor to his favorite slot machine in the high-limit area: Triple Stars, a three-reel game that cost $10 a spin. Maybe this time it would pay out enough to save him.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

President Obama asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking this week, and plans will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Friday that the investigation will reach all the way back to 2008, and will examine patterns of “malicious cyber-activity timed to election cycles.” He emphasized that the White House is not questioning the results of the November election.

Asked whether a sweeping investigation could be completed in the time left in Obama’s final term—just six weeks—Schultz replied that intelligence agencies will work quickly, because the preparing the report is “a major priority for the president of the United States.”

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.